Art over Man: The Roger Waters Test Case
When we create art, we are our best selves, better than the selves we are outside of art.
going by my friend Richie, who had scalped tickets for $75 each, which was an enormous sum for a teenager at the time. I received a brisk education in the venue parking lot, where a stranger we met played us his old Pink Floyd tapes and told us the story of Syd Barrett, the band’s founder whose mental breakdown had inspired The Wall. Later, I would learn that the album was as much about Roger Waters, who was then the band’s frontman, but it hardly mattered. I was hooked.
Over 26 tracks, The Wall tells the story of a musician named Pink, a sensitive young man mocked at school by his teachers, traumatised by an overbearing mother, used by the establishment, and let down by his lovers. It was not my story, but the alienated rage, the haunted isolation, and the flight into the imagination all struck a chord in me. Over the next few years, I’d wallpaper my bedroom with Pink Floyd posters and work my way through their entire back-catalogue, from Animals through Wish You Were Here to the comically strange Ummagumma and their debut LP Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which was the band’s only record with Syd Barre
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